He Who Gets Slapped

This article is about the 1915 play by Leonid Andreyev. For other uses, see He Who Gets Slapped (disambiguation).
He Who Gets Slapped
Margalo Gillmore (Consuelo) & Richard Bennett (He) in the English-language adaptation of He Who Gets Slapped at the Garrick Theatre on Broadway
Written byLeonid Andreyev
Date premiered27 October 1915 (1915-10-27)
Place premieredMoscow Art Theatre
Original languageRussian
GenreSymbolist drama

He Who Gets Slapped (Russian: Тот, кто получает пощёчины, romanized: Tot, kto poluchayet poshchochiny) is a play in four acts by Russian dramatist Leonid Andreyev; completed in August 1915 and first produced in that same year at the Moscow Art Theatre on October 27, 1915.[1][2] Immensely popular with Russian audiences, the work received numerous stagings throughout the Russian speaking world in the two decades after its premiere, and then later enjoyed a resurgence of popularity in the 1970s and 1980s in Russian theaters.[2] The work is still part of the dramatic repertory in Russian speaking countries.[2] While well-liked by the public, critical reaction to the work was initially negative in Russia. It was later reevaluated as a masterwork of Russian drama, and is regarded as Andreyev's finest achievement among his 25 plays.[1][2]

The play is representative of Andreyev's "panpsyche theatre" in which the plot focuses on developing the internal, psychological and intellectual aspects of characters over external action.[1] Set inside a circus within a French city, the play's main character is a mysterious 39-year-old stranger (referred to as "He"; Russian тот, tot, "that one") whose name is never revealed to the audience.[1] "He" is fleeing a failed marriage and joins the circus as a clown. "He" falls in love with the horseback rider Consuelo, the daughter of Count Mancini. The Count pushes Consuelo into marrying Baron Renyard for financial gain. "He" poisons Consuelo, Baron Renyard commits suicide in despair, and then "He" drinks the poison himself at the end.[1]

On the international stage, the play became Andreyev's most successful in the United States, being popular with both audiences and critics when it was staged on Broadway at the Garrick Theatre in 1922 in a production mounted by the Theatre Guild.[1][3] That production used an English language translation of the original Russian by the psychoanalyst Gregory Zilboorg which was first published in 1921.[4] The play has been staged in multiple languages internationally, but is most often performed in English outside of Russia.[1] A 1944 English translation made for The Old Vic by Judith Guthrie reduced the structure of the play to two acts instead of four.[5] This version was used for the 1946 Broadway revival, the 1947 West End production, and several other stagings in the United States and United Kingdom during the 20th century.

The success of the stage play in the US led to the development of Victor Sjöström's critically successful 1924 silent film of the same name which was notably the first film ever made by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Besides this film, the play has been adapted many times, including an earlier Russian film in 1916, a Swedish film in 1926, a novel in 1925, an opera in 1956, a 1961 television film, and a musical in 1971.

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Frederick H. White (2016). "A Slap in the Face of American Taste". In Alexander Burry and Frederick H. White (ed.). A Slap in the Face of American Taste: Transporting He Who Gets Slapped to American Audiences (PDF). Edinburgh University Press. pp. 140–164. ISBN 9781474411424. JSTOR 10.3366/j.ctt1bh2kpq.12. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  2. ^ a b c d Андреев Л.Н. (1995). Собрание сочинений в шести томах. Vol. 5. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  3. ^ The Cast. Vol. 83. 1922. p. 13.
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference EBOOK was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference Vic was invoked but never defined (see the help page).